Research and Technology

A 2016 research paper in the Journal Nature predicts a 40 percent shortfall of available water across the globe by 2030 with effects not just for drinking, food production, hygiene and public health, but also for 98 percent of global electric power generation.

DoE said SuperTruck II projects will research, develop, and demonstrate technologies to improve heavy-truck freight efficiency by more than 100 percent when compared with a manufacturer's best-in-class 2009 truck, with an emphasis on technology cost-effectiveness and performance.

These technologies will decrease carbon emissions and support DOE's EV Everywhere Grand Challenge to make plug-in electric vehicles as affordable to own and operate as gasoline-powered vehicles by 2022.

The time is right to begin looking beyond the tailpipe and instead consider the full life cycle emissions of vehicles. The trend is not unlike what has happened in the construction industry over the last several years.

The EPA has, for the first time ever, registered a sea lamprey mating pheromone as a vertebrate pheromone biopesticide, which will be used to help collect and remove adult lampreys before they have a chance of reproducing.

Registration opened Sept. 29 in the contest, which will last 4.5 years, with competing teams challenged to develop breakthrough technologies that convert the most carbon dioxide into one or more products with the highest net value.

Linked to earthquakes, water contamination, and general pollution, fracking becomes more controversial by the day. Meanwhile, 13,000 new wells are being drilled every year. There have been over a thousand documented cases of water contamination next to areas of gas drilling—cases of sensory, respiratory, cardiovascular and neurological damage. From the water we drink to the ground beneath our feet, is it too late to ask, “What gives?”

With the EPA proposing to lower the primary ozone standard from 75 ppb to 70 or 65 ppb, researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder and the NOAA have created a commentary on how the new standard could make research more difficult for air quality managers at both local and state levels.

Exposure to the pollution caused by such things as car exhaust and coal-fired power plants may be associated with an increased risk of autism spectrum disorder, a University of Pittsburgh study has found.

By agreement with the Capital Region of Denmark, the system will also act as a remediation system, preventing polluted water running into the great groundwater reservoirs, from which the capital collects its drinking water.